Changes
by Calico Yorki
Summary: A Tamers fanfiction, after the end. Second-person, so don't let it take you by surprise. This will be a test of many, many things. You are learning that all good things must come to an end, so that new and wondrous things may begin. - Chapter 1 is ready for action. You can thank me getting a much-needed Daft Punk fix for this being posted at last. NOTE: Errors have been corrected.
1. Prologue

She's your Tamer.

Not "was", as in "once was, but is no longer." She's still your only master. You will only ever bow your head in apology to her. You will only ever kneel in respect to her. Only she can order who and when and where you attack. Even across time and space, your devotion to that girl is ever strong. Even as your mystical leaves tear attackers to shreds, even as your windswept paws carry you vast distances in a heartbeat, you still pine after the human who gave you a home.

Yes, even with how your strength has grown, making you the strongest Child-Level Digimon for such a massive distance around, you miss her. You used to think humans were weak, in every sense of the word. Frail in body, soft in mind, tender in emotion. How ironic that a little slip of a girl with an icy mask could inspire you to push your body to its limits, then break those limits, again, and once again. She lit a fire in your heart with her frigid armor, and it fascinated you watching how those impudent boys melted that shell. For a time, you were certain that it would become your biggest mistake: You'd been raised on the notion that friendship and love invites weakness into one's heart.

Oh, how wrong you were. Whenever her life was in danger, you would stop at nothing to save her. She was, and still completely is, the one thing most precious to you. You found Guilmon and Terriermon good company, still wish you could see the boys again, that girl who was used by the D-Reaper still bothers you - Making you wonder whether she's okay, how she handled losing her second partner - But your Tamer will always sit on the throne of your heart, that one being in all of Creation who you can say you love.

Her strong will, her hot temper, her struggle with accepting losses and setbacks, that tiniest of pouts she gets when her mother isn't able to spend time with her, quickly replaced by a veneer of cool acceptance, that tiniest of smiles she gets when she wakes up on a Sunday at her grandmother's house and it's gently pouring the rain...Everything about her made you complete, and it was only the conviction that you _will_ find a way to see her again that originally made it possible to fight and train. For the sakes of returning to her side, you can and will surpass all obstacles, traverse any limits.

The Digital World has grown tepid - At least, in your area. There are few Digimon left who can hope to challenge you in this arid mountain range. In the peaks where you keep to, a dry, crunchy layer of snow and ice covers everything. Below the perch where you meditate, any fall would promise a painful deletion on the craggy fangs of stone jutting upward. Its silence is perfect for your meditation. But while the quiet here is deep and lasting, a roaring silence that robs breath from those unfamiliar with it and fills them with awe, terror even of the few Digimon who dare to inhabit it, it does not give you peace.

When you lived with your Tamer, there was often silence - But only that superficial silence that humans are acquainted with. From her grandmother's house, you could hear a medley of insects scritch-scratching on the stone and wood outside, the birds and frogs singing, and very far away, children frolicking in nature. In another defeat of your original ideas, such an incomplete silence gave you deep-rooted peace. In the threatening silence of your new "home", where the silence is like throttling chains that enforce their existence without remorse, you can never find true tranquility.

As you descend from the mountainside, you enter a dry, parched, cold scrubland, where in its mysteriously hardy fashion, the grass still thrives on little to no water. High above, the sky still pulses faintly with a huge web of glowing circuits. Nothing at all like the dynamic sky of the human world, constantly changing its colors and patterns with the time of day and the amount of clouds. You remember the first time you were caught in the rain. Your Tamer nearly choked on her food when she saw you glowering out of your wet fur - And promptly burst out laughing when she got a good look at you after drying you off.

You did not, at the time, believe it funny that the Digimon who was to become strongest looked like the French poodles you occasionally saw on the television set in the living room of your Tamer's household. In retrospect, perhaps it couldn't have hurt to actually laugh once in a while. Upon recalling the memory, you wish that your disapproving glance hadn't quieted the girl's laughter so quickly. You don't think you _ever_ saw her laugh again.

This place is too quiet. This place is too parched of ability. Without the humans, the Digimon of this world cannot and _will_ not reach their full potential. And you cannot grow in this place where you don't have any challenging opponents - Besides your comrades, who you cannot bring yourself to fight without holding back at the last minute, and who themselves do the exact same.

You will not cease your pursuit of what you know is right. Humans and Digimon can exist peacefully. Even those who challenge the peace that can be reached will be defeated by those who pursue bonds fiercely enough.

Even if the entire world will change, you will regain your lost paradise.

You are Renamon, and you will soon be returning to Ruki.

**End of Prologue**


	2. Chapter 1: CONTACT

You are really not going to survive having Juri stay in your house a whole month.

It's winter vacation, and you should be polishing your skills for the next tournament. Even if you missed the last three or four regional tourneys. And even if you haven't even kept up with collecting cards. And even if okay fine the tournament excuse is sunk. You just can't stand living with Juri. You don't hate her. You just want to wring her neck at the moment.

Like a rock, she's sat on a tatami mat in front of your television set, feet tucked under the table with its heater, staring at the TV. You will never understand how Super Sentai and Kamen Rider and anime make her go vegetable like that. You don't hate them. You just want to bust the TV when Juri gets like this. It's unhealthy. "Juri," you finally say, "You'll get a cold if you use that heater too much."

She jumps and looks around for the source of the statement. Patience. "Oh, hey, Ruki," she says tiredly. How she can be tired from vegging out in front of the TV you cannot possibly fathom. Bless her heart, she says cheerfully, "I was wondering where you were! Do you want to watch some Super Sentai with me?" You stare blankly at her. "Oh...I guess not. Do you want to watch Samurai Pizza Cats?" Your stare begins to edge closer to a sour glare. "Okay. I'll just turn the heater off. I'm warm enough anyways." Thoroughly bored of this conversation, you say a curt farewell and leave to her waving behind you.

Heading back to your room, you plop down on your bed and stare out the window for a while. It's snowing. You could draw parallels to things that happen when it snows like this, but you're not a prima donna. You just wish life felt like it had a little more purpose. You're getting good grades, you've won so many widely-varied Digimon Card tournaments that they have an honorary Champion's seat reserved for you so that no one can take your place unless they beat you personally - An honor you've only heard of Ryo earning. But it doesn't mean a thing unless you can fight for it.

You want to rise above adversity. You want to toil and train and succeed at something, anything that you enjoy. Your grades are phenomenal, as your mother constantly crows to her friends, but you really couldn't care less. This card game is the only thing left linking you to _her_, and anyone who wants to tell you it's time to give her memory up had better be ready for when you get your skinny thumbs around their neck. Those thumbs have proven excellent for throttling morons and imbeciles. Takato is an old acquaintance of this deadly fighting technique you have learned.

As delightful as that tangent has been, you had something you wanted to do. Under the bed you reach, until you find it. A miniature briefcase that your mother let you buy with your own money from a previous summer job, complete with the design of a fox's face on it. She herself had fished it out of a bargain rack, abandoned at the very back. You can only attribute such a discovery to her instinctual, finely-honed abilities as a shopper. Best. Mom. Ever. Undoing the clasps on the briefcase, you pop it open and look inside. Within are all of your decks, built around a separate type of Digimon.

Unfortunately, you've not been the _most_ diligent to allocating your Digimon cards to their own personal decks - You only have feasible competition-usage decks completed for Jungle Troopers, Nightmare Soldiers, and Deep Savers, and just don't have enough cards to get started on any of the others you use that often. You'll let yourself be called a perfectionist, you'll settle for glowering at someone who calls you neurotic, but you will not be called unprepared for a tournament. This is an egregious act of inaction on your part to just not be motivated enough to focus on your last link to your beloved partner. A folly that is simply disgraceful for a girl who helped save two worlds, alongside some other guys.

It is at that moment that you hear someone knocking on the door outside. On the door to your grandmother's house. In the woods. While your window is whited out by a blizzard. Huh. You make sure to call for Juri not to answer the door, and arm yourself with a miniature bat for protection. Your mom specifically told you that if a strange man was at the door, for any reason he might say, go to kneecap him and worry about the consequences later. You have really started to respect that woman deeply as you've spent more time with her. You keep the bat down at your side as you go to answer the door, carefully, slowly, maybe you can get a peek at who it is - Without letting them inside - If you just, slowly, carefully, ease, the door...Open...

...

Oh God not her. Anyone but her. You don't need this. God does not like you today. It must be God that brought you all together. The twinkly-eyed man upstairs just always has a surprise waiting just around the corner. Maybe if you just stare at her long enough with the bat in your far hand she'll get the picture you're trying to paint for her. If she'll just pick up what you're putting down, if she'll just receive your intentions through that mental uplink that you heard about all living creatures having, maybe you won't have to kill her. Oh God what did Renamon say about hiding bodies? She didn't say anything about hiding bodies. Well that option's out. Okay. Just will her to leave. Leave. Leave. This is not the house you are looking for. Oh thank God she's chewing her lip and looks like she's about to walk awa -

"Oh, hey, Alice! Come on in, Super Sentai's on!" God_dammit_ Juri. Alice hurries on past you out of the cold and wedges herself in under the table with Juri. The two seem to have a lot more fun talking to each other than watching that show. Good. They can rock out with their feelings like a power and a force that you've never seen before all by themselves. With an expert escape maneuvre, you're back in your room without them noticing you.

To be fair, Alice only shows up to anyone when it's important. The Digital World is still being monitored, and she apparently is such a child prodigy that, upon taking all advanced placement classes in her latter two or three years of high school, she was able to start college halfway through her Junior year. So, she's got plenty of freetime to run messages from the net monitors to former Tamers like you. You rarely heed them, though just to give her the benefit of the doubt, you suppose you'll have to head back in there and catch up with the girl who did, after all, lose her partner just like you and the others.

Back to the card case. You mull over each deck, before a thought hits you. Do you have the cards? You think so. A plan is forming in your head. You're suddenly a little whirlwind of activity, picking out specific cards from every hiding place you have. When you at last have the deck assembled, you know the last card you want. Over to your bed's pillow, you reach inside the case and take out the final piece.

A small lucky talisman on a necklace. You never intended to leave it in here forever, anyways. Undoing the tie on the red bag, you remove the card. Not just any card. The card you would not stop scouring shops for until you found it upon that fateful day when the status quo was reset for the greatest part. Placing her card on top of your deck, you hold the stack of cards reverently in your hands.

The tiniest of smiles graces your features as you lay a kiss on top of the deck. You tuck it into the pouch you had reserved for Nature Spirits, leaving your hand rested there for a moment. Then, the briefcase is closed, and placed back under your bed.

Your name is Ruki, and you honor Renamon's memory in your own ways.


End file.
